The DivGro Weekly—04.10.24

169 Consecutive dividend increases

Weekly Dividend Progress

This week we received further real-time, tangible evidence of outstanding business progress when we received our dividends from ADP, Nike and Pepsico. We also became entitled to our quarterly dividends from FirstService and Stryker, all meaningfully higher than this time last year.

How We Are Tracking

Since DivGro's inception we have predicted and benefited from 169 consecutive dividend increases across our portfolio companies, with no decreases. The average rate of these dividend increases is 14.75%.

FirstService

Over the past 50 years, FirstService has solidified its leadership in the provision of essential property management and restoration services in North America. In this time, it has nurtured significant scale benefits; chief among these is the company’s facility to provide equivalent, if not superior, services at a lower cost than its smaller, highly fragmented competitors. This edge provides FirstService with flexibility when it comes to lucrative growth opportunities, both organic and acquisitive. For example: in the time it has been held by DivGro, FirstService has already made several highly accretive acquisitions, cementing its market leadership in locations such as Greater Toronto and the Bay Area, and has added the lucrative roofing services vertical. Simultaneously, the company is seizing organic growth opportunities via the extensive runway of housing units that gradually migrate to professional housing management services. Moreover, beyond its robust management business, FirstService’s restoration arm benefits disproportionately from sporadic catastrophic events such as recent Hurricane Helene. When these unfold, FirstService is looked to by insurers as the restoration supplier of choice. With these dynamics at play, FirstService is primed to enjoy continued high profitability and superior reinvestment options which should advance its dividend growth profile in parallel.